User blog:Battlefan237/Halloween Special - Death is just a new start:Sadako Yamamura vs. Yoshikage Kira
Death is not an end, just a new start for another adventure.Many fictional works put this idea to extreme.In this Halloween special, we have two guests that exercise this idea in creative but twisted ways - Sadako Yamamura, the innocent psychic girl who transformed into a supernatural serial killer after her brutal death.Yoshikage Kira,Morioh's notorious serial killer with an obsession with female hands who becomes an agent for justice after his demise under the ambulence's wheels.In this duel between ghosts,who will survive and who will be destroyed ? Sadako Yamamura Sadako Yamamura is the main antagonist of the Japanese psychological horror film franchise Ring ''and the mascot icon of Japanese horror film industry. Due to numerous remakes, reboots and adaptions, she has a rather messed-up origin story, by which I'm referring to the origin story's content and coherence at the same time. However,by only looking into the notable films,Sadako is usually characterized as a young girl blessed with an inherent psychic power,allowing her to make limited predictions about future and move small objects with her mind power. After being brutally thrown down a well by her father, the girl returns in the form of a vengeful spirit who spreads her presence via a cursed videotape. Anyone who watches the tape will receive a phone call from Sadako (who warns the victim about his/her impending death) and die seven days later. In her spirit form, Sadako has been active as a supernatural serial killer for more than a decade and she at one point even battled another vengeful spirit Kayako Saeki. Weapons & Powers & Abilities Over the course of the ''Ring ''series, Sadako Yamamura displayed a vast array of psychic powers and physical powers as a vengeful spirit. Note that this is the movieverse Sadako, so we're discounting the Ring virus. *'Nensha (念写): Nensha ''or "thoughtography" is a psychic power possessed by all incarnations of Sadako who used it to create the images on the Cursed Videotape. Sadako can transfer disturbing sounds and images onto electronic devices, mainly through sound recordings and videotapes. Any technology affected by her nensha powers were cursed,and anyone who views the cursed recordings will be cursed and meet his/her doom seven days later. *'Screenportation:Sadako can teleport, albeit not in traditional ways.Whereever her victims are, Sadako will find a screen and emerge from it to assault her preys. While she mostly uses TV screens as proxy, she at times made use of screens of other electronic devices. Her body size is dependent on the size of the screen she uses.She can also drag people into screens if the size allows. When dragged into screens, the victim will find himself trapped in or around the well in which Sadako drowned, with Sadako herself standing nearby to finish him. *'Telekinesis:'Sadako possesses basic level telekinesis. She is able to move small objects, such as a mirror, aroud with ease. But she has never demonstrated moving any objects larger than it. *'Telepathy': Sadako knows exactly who has watched her cursed videotape and where they watched it and even gives them a phone call to remind them of their 7 days deadline. *'Possession': Sadako can possess her victims into being like her by tormenting and killing other people.These possessed beings normally possess normal human physical characteristics, apart from a thrist to kill. *'Death Staring': Sadako can simply cause her victims to die of a heart attack by revealing her grostequely malformed eye. On many occasions, the sheer presence of Sadako drives her victims insane or to commit suicides in brutal ways. *'Mind Invasion:'Sadako can invade the minds of her future victims and force them into flashbacks centered around their painful memories. She can also show her presence in those flashbacks and physically injures the victim, usually leaving a small bruise on the arm. *'Magical Hair': Sadako, like Kayako, uses her hair as a killing tool. Although not as powerful as Kayako's hair, Sadako's hair can still be used to strangle, restrain or slash her victims. *'Superhuman Strength': Although she rarely resorts to physical violence, Sadako at times uses brute force to snap her victim's necks in sheer seconds. Her strength also allowed her to match Kayako, a being with superhuman strength, evenly in a physical brawl. *'Paralyzing Others': Sadako is able to paralyze her victims to prevent them from escaping by her mere presence. *'Souls Manipulation': Sadako can steal the souls of her victims and turn them into vengeful ghosts themselves, who assist her in spreading the curse. Tomoko in Ring, for example, turned into a vengeful ghost after being killed by Sadako and manipulates her cousin Yoichi to watch the cursed videotape. *'Curse Manipulation: '''Sadako can update her curse to fit the modern world. For example the proxy of her curse evolved from videotape recordings to internet videos. Weakness * '''Her Code:'Sadako strictly follows her code of killing on most occasions.Unless she possesses someone, she won't be actively seeking for victims in the street like other horror villains.She always warns her victims about her arrival via phone in advance.She only goes after those that have watched the cursed videos.She is very punctual and never arrives early or arrives late.She usually appears in front of her victims when there isn't any bystanders who haven't seen the tapes present.And when there are bystanders observing her sneakily, she generally ignores them and does her work, unless the bystanders deliberately/foolishly reveal themselves or intervene her killings. (Example:During Sadako v Kayako, a student witnessed Sadako killing her friend literally in front of her, with a thin glass door blocking her away from her friend. Sadako almost certainly saw the student, but didn't give a shit about her and simply vanished after the killing). Yoshikage Kira (Post-DiU) Before his death under the ambulence, Yoshikage Kira 'was a serial killer and hand fetishist who targetted women with beautiful hands and disposed their bodies with his stand, Killer Queen. After his death, he became a vagabond spirit who is unaware of his life when he was alive. Unallowed to ascend to heaven due to his sins, the spirit of Yoshikage Kira now works as a hitman for a female monk at a temple located in an unspecified rural area of Japan,doing the "dirty work" of killing targets (who are also criminals and sinners that escaped the judgement of law) in exchange for money and rewards. Although having no recollection about his life aside from knowing his name, Yoshikage Kira maintains several characteristics of his original self, such as his killer instinct, his love for classical music and his idea of pursuing and enjoying a quiet life. Weapons & Powers & Abilities * '''Ghost Physiology (JJBA):'When a person dies in the JoJo universe, their souls leave their bodies. In the case of a fundamentally virtuous person or animal, their soul, in the form of an incorporeal manifestation of themselves, can be seen transcending into the Heaven. Individuals whose souls are incapable of passing through to the other side are forced to wander the Earth as ghosts. There is almost no difference in appearance between someone and their ghost, as the souls are reflections of the person.Ghosts will also retain their personalities and are perfectly capable of reasonable thought. Although invisible to ordinary people, ghosts can be seen by animals such as dogs. However, Ghosts can still make themselves heard by normal people.In addition, ghosts are blessed with the inability to feel pain or get tired, as seen in Dead man's Question, Kira displayed no sign of pain or tiredness after losing limbs and a day of missions.Ghosts can also reinstall their lost limbs by attaching them to their places on the body. Ghosts generally don't bleed. Ghosts can also travel through walls and other physical barriers with ease. * 'Ghostly Objects:'For some unknown reason, objects can become Ghosts if destroyed as well in JoJoverse. Worded differently, the objects become "made of Ghost" as if material. These objects, ranging from fire, food, books, guns, places, and entire buildings, can be seen,felt and manipulated by ghosts in JoJoverse.As evidenced in Dead Man's Question, Kira reached into the ghost of a destroyed painting and drew out a gun. However, these objects aren't capable of spreading to other living objects, so it wouldn't be possible to kill someone using a ghost object. It is, however, possible to use them to harm and kill other spirits. * 'Kitchen Knife & Dagger:'For the purpose of this battle, Kira will initially be packed with a kitchen knife and a dagger. He used the kitchen knife to kill a child murderer and used the dagger to defend himself when Cleansers struck. * 'Magical Pistol:'When attacked by Cleansers, Kira materialized a pistol from a painting. It looks like a Nambu pistol, but I can't tell for sure. It can shot magical bullets that do harm to supernatural creatures.He'll initially be packed with this weapon and may draw out other weapons from ghosts of objects during the fight. Weakness: * '''Ghostly Restrictions:Ghosts in JJBA follow certain rules.They can only enter a room if it's empty or if someone inside has given the Ghost permission. However, the nature of the permission is loose: even accepting to open a mail slot counts as inviting a Ghost.Ghosts have freely togglable intangibility. By default, it seems that Ghosts are intangible and thus can freely move through objects. However, they still have the ability to manipulate objects, though they are not able to feel them. Should a Ghost touch someone unwillingly, they lose their limbs, so most spirits just shrivel and hide in the shadows and out-of-the-way places to avoid bumping into people. X-Factors Physicality Sadako is a super-spirit with superhuman strength,endurance and durability. She can easily snap her victims'(who are usually adults) necks and break their bones. She can also lift them up or drag them into TV with her bare hands. In Kayako v Sadako, she brawled evenly with Kayako - a being that can easily rip apart human adults and lift relatively heavy objects. However Sadako can be harmed through magical means,such as magical objects and magical creatures. During the end of her battle with Kayako, she is eliminated when pushed down the well by Kayako (but later both came back as a merged entity). Kira Yoshikage, like his old victim Reimi Sugimoto,is unable to feel tired and pain, indicating superhuman durability and tolerence.However,like other ghosts in JJBAverse, his strength is akin to that of his original human form. Therefore, Kira only possesses the strength of an atheletic adult human being. Kira can also be hurt adn harmed by magical creatures such as the Cleansers, which almost killed him. Intelligence Unlike Kayako, who is fueled by a blind rage,several incidents during the Ring series indicated that Sadako still has a certain degree of intelligence,for she is smart when using her mind manipulation to mess with her victims, and can perfectly trick others into watching her cursed tapes when possessing someone. She is also good at keeping up with time, because she updated the proxy of her curse to fit into the modern society. Kira Yoshikage retained pretty much all of his intelligence in his human life. As evidenced by the fact that he can always gain the "approval" to enter the rooms through deliberate conversation, he is still that skilled manipulator. He is also quite a good investigator and quick thinker, for he figured out the mechanism behind the ghost objects and the cleansers quickly. Like his old self, he rarely loses his calm. And when he loses his calm he can always regain it in a short period of time. Mobility Due to her body being broken as a result of being tossed down the well, Sadako can barely walk. When approaching someone through physical means, she walks in a slow and shambling fashion. However, she makes it up by teleporting. Kira Yoshikage still maintains the speed and reflexes of an atheletic adult. He can run pretty fast and react quickly to sudden attacks. He can also travel through walls and other physical barriers. Experience Sadako has been active as a vengeful spirit since her death, and has been operating as a suprnatural serial killer since the late 1980s (during these years a resort was built around the area where she died and therefore she created the first cursed tape). She is likely still active today, considering several films about her activities in the 21th century have been made, and another new Sadako movie is around the corner and will hit the cinema in 2021. During these years, she has killed countless normal humans, defeated several groups of psychics and exorcists, and battled Kayako Saeki on one occasion (during the fight she defeated Kayako's son Toshio Saeki, and the battle ended in a tie). Kira Yoshikage has a good record of battles in his human life, but he doesn't rememeber any of those stand battles. However, as a ghost, he has been active for an unknown period of time (it can be assumed that he has been active since his death, which was in 1999). During these years, he has killed countless human criminals on his missions. In addition, he has also fought an unknown number suprnatural creatures based on the events and dialogues of Dead Man's Question, such as the cleansers, which are swarm creatures that kill ghosts, and presumably other ghosts. Brutality Sadako Yamamura is eager to spread her curse as wide as possible. Whoever gets cursed will be brutally murdered by her or driven to suicide with no mercy. She has never shown any signs of kindness, not even to children. Kira Yoshikage has certainly tuned down his violent tendencies when compared to his human self. However, he is still quite vicious and ruthless, for he spared no hesitation using brutal methods against his targets during his missions. Battle Some weird occurances are around the city - teenagers with no history of heart attacks dying are found dead in their homes, with their facial expressions twisted in fear.With the police puzzled by the nature of these deaths, the monk,who suspects that a supernatural force out of her control is behind all these, and thus sends her agent Yoshikage Kira to investigate and kill the source if there indeed is a supernatural force as he did in the cleanser investigation,promising that he can regain knowledge about his life before death once the job is done.The area in which the deaths took place is close to the house in which ghost objects including several paintings with pistols and bladed tools inside exist, and the cleansers inside that house has been wiped out by Kira. Note that the video tape will still be circulating around the community where the teenagers reside when Kira goes to investigate. *Winning Condition for Kira :Sadako Yamamura is eliminated. *Winning Condition for Sadako : Yoshikage Kira is eliminated or Yoshikage Kira fails to figure out the mechanism of the curses and therefore fails to encounter Sadako. *Condition for a tie:Kira figures out the curses and eliminates all the videotapes inside the teenagers' homes, banning the curse from spreading, but is unable to kill Sadako with his weapons. For those interested in the complete lore of both characters, read wikipedia pages of the Ring Franchise and Dead Man's Question by Hirohiko Araki. Aside from the battle, the Ring（1998）, or Ringu, is a great horror film, and I recommend it to all of you. Category:Blog posts